Rosie O'Donnell's comment that radical Christians are just as dangerous as radical Muslims was astonishing enough. More so for me was the audience reaction- wild clapping in support of it.
And then there's the simply bizarre defence of O'Donnell which took place on Scarborough Country. First of all, Rachel Sklar of the Huffington Post tries to compare jihadi violence to the likes of Fred Phelp's and his "God hates fags" signs. So offensive language is just as bad as the brutal murder of children at Beslan, as hacking innocent men's heads off on video, as driving car bombs into markets filled with women shopping? When trying to compare the two types of extremism she even tries to contrast Muslim extremism (i.e. mass murder) with the anti-abortion and anti-condom use of some Christians. That she even tries to compare the two...well, I can't even comprehend how she can do that.
Then there's Jennifer Pozner of "Women in Media and News". When questioned on how many people had been killed in America by Christian radicals she claims to have seen the statistics for the period between '99 and 2000 (not between 99 and 2000 people as I'd originally thought)- she claims that there were 20 abortion clinic bombings and 8 attempted murders.
You find some statistics for abortion clinic attacks listed here (albeit only up to 2004) and here National Abortion Federation too. Eight attempted murders doesn't really compare to the many, many actual murders committed by Islamist terrorists. Nor is any mention made of the major difference between Muslim and Christian fundamentalists; there are no exhortations to perpetual war against unbelievers in the Bible. The Koran on the other hand has a great deal to say about how to treat infidels and how to wage war on them. The Bible also doesn't instruct Christians to chop heads off their enemies.
Pozner also seems to be completely bewildered by what's going on in the world. When the host talks about women and children being blown up she claims it's by "US bombs"; he has to explain the Sunni-Shia violence going on in Iraq.
There's also a nice Freudian slip from Pozner at the end of the interview- when asked outright if Muslim extremists pose as much of a threat as Christian extremists, she first answers, "No." That answer's quickly changed of course to a "it depends who you are".
2 comments:
I saw that Scarborough Country episode, and Pozner was asked about the statistics from this year, and she said that she didn't have statistics from this year, she had statistics from 99 to 2001 -- as in, 1999 through 2001. She did not say between 99 and 2000 people had been killed. She said there were somewhere in the range of 20 bombings/attempted and 8 or so murders and attempted murders in those years.
Thanks for pointing out my mistake- duly noted and corrected. I took it completely the worng way. Makes much more sense now.
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